Pierre Nkurunziza

Pierre Nkurunziza (18 December 1963-) was President of Burundi from 26 August 2005, succeeding Domitien Ndayizeye.

Biography
Pierre Nkurunziza was born on 18 December 1963 in Bujumbura, Burundi a year after it gained its independence. He came from a family of Protestant Hutus, and his father MP Eustache Ngabisha was killed by the Tutsis in the Burundian Genocide of 1972, which left 210,000 Hutus dead. In 1988 Nkurunziza became Deputy Secretary-General of the CNDD-FDD, and he fought in the Burundian Civil War against the government as a CNDD-FDD member. In July 2005 he was dominated as CNDD-FDD's candidate for President of Burundi after the end of the civil war, and on 26 August he was elected as president. In March 2014 he banned jogging, saying that it could be used as cover for subversion, and he became an unpopular president. In 2015, when he ran for a third term for President, popular unrest led to a failed coup by General Godefroid Niyombare. 100 people were killed in two months of protests, and rebel groups rose up in the country, with some clashes leaving a score dead in each. Independent media was shut down and 150,000 Burundians went into exile, and in July 2015 he was re-elected after the opposition boycotted the elections.